Geoff Mulgan

Geoff Mulgan has been called "the chief ideologue of New Labour"[1] and "the ultimate New Labourite".[2] Mulgan has been a key advisor to Tony Blair and was one of the founders of the think tank Demos, which has close ties to New Labour.[3] He was a key figure in the drive to modernise left-wing politics and move the Labour Party towards the market.

Other affiliations

Circa 2000: Occasional reporter for BBC TV (programmes include the BBC2 series 'In Search of Power') and radio (including Radio 4 'Analysis').

Circa 2000: Occasional columnist on UK newspapers, including the Independent and Guardian. Trustee of Crime Concern, the Photographers Gallery, and the Political Quarterly, and on the editorial board of Green Futures journal and Prospect magazine.[9]

Background

From 1982 to 1984 Mulgan worked as an administrator at the Greater London Council. He was a 1986-87 Harkness Fellow (which reinforces Anglo-American links) at MIT.[10] He was co-founder and director of the London based think tank Demos from 1993-98.[11] Mulgan's CV on the Demos website[12] does not mention that he joined the British American Project (BAP) in 1996.[13] In September 2003 he was appointed head of policy at No 10 in addition to his role as head of the Strategy Unit in the Cabinet Office.[14]

Mulgan is said to have been involved with Red Wedge, an initiative allegedly started to bring young people into politics. According to John Harris, writing in The Guardian, Mulgan claims he just "drove their van". Harris writes:

To start, though, I want to know about a role that mysteriously is not mentioned his resume: the time he spent in the 1980s with the Labour-supporting collective of musicians and comedians known as Red Wedge. According to Billy Bragg, the young Mulgan drove their van. True? He laughs, slightly nervously. "I did drive the van. Not very well, sadly. It wasn't one of my more heroic moments. I'd forgotten all about that. Who did I have in there? Oh, all sorts of musicians. Paul Weller, Dr Robert (of the Blow Monkeys), Jimmy Somerville from the Communards. But I wasn't in charge. I was only the driver." To some extent, this humble claim crystallises Mulgan's multifaceted career.[15]

The two Red Wedge tours took place in January/February 1986 (featuring Billy Bragg, Paul Weller's band The Style Council, The Communards, Junior Giscombe, Lorna Gee and Jerry Dammers) and in the run up to the June 1987 General Election (featuring the main participants from the first tour as well as The The, Captain Sensible and the Blow Monkeys). If, as seems likely, Mulgan was referring to the second tour, this would have been at the time he was a Harkness fellow at MIT in Boston.

In the 1980s Mulgan was part of the Comedia consultancy, which, with Roger Liddle's Pieda Consulting, advised city administrations[16]. These consultancies spread the practice of purging left-wing people, whose politics were seen as old-fashioned, from positions of power, in an effort to modernise. From 1990-92 Mulgan was special adviser to Gordon Brown when he was shadowing the Department of Trade and Industry, and became 'the Clinton campaign's link to Labour, which involved lots of telephone calls with the Americans - mainly advising them how not to repeat our mistakes.'[17]

Demos brought to the UK several free-market ideologues from the US including Philip Bobbitt (Lyndon B. Johnson's nephew). He was Reagan's legal counsel from 1980-81, on the Select Committee/cover-up on Iran/Contra and Director for Intelligence at the NSC 1997-98. Demos also advertised an April meeting with George Soros.[22]

↑Andy Beckett Friends in high places You won't have heard of the British-American Project, but its members include some of the most powerful men and women in the UK. Officially it exists to promote the 'special relationship', but it has been described as a Trojan horse for US foreign policy. Even its supporters joke that it's funded by the CIA. Should we be worried? Andy Beckett reports, The Guardian, Saturday 6 November 2004 Accessed 13 April 2008